At an occasionally raucous House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, said that under Holder, the Justice Department has been more considerate to terrorists than to members of Congress.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, committee chairman, cited what he said were numerous examples of the Justice Department flouting the law, including its refusal to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act denying federal benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages.

Attorney General Eric Holder (Official Photo)

“The American people should have confidence that the Department of Justice fairly enforces laws,’’ Smith said. “That confidence is lacking today.’’

A veteran of Capitol Hill confrontations with angry GOP lawmakers, Holder appeared to take it all in stride. He even reassured Democratic members such as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, who sought to intervene that “I’m not feeling hostile at all. I’m pretty calm. I’m OK.’’

Holder’s appearance before the committee was his fifth, three of them since January 2011 when Republicans took control of the House.

In addition, Holder has appeared six times before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about Operation Fast and Furious, in which Phoenix-based ATF agents used watch-and-wait tactics on cartel-linked gun purchasers but then lost track of over 2,000 weapons that slipped into Mexico.

Two of those weapons were recovered in December 2010 in Southern Arizona at the murder site of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

The oversight committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., also is a House Judiciary Committee, and his questioning of Holder was by far the harshest.

“You’re not a good witness,’’ said Issa, who grilled Holder on the pace of the Justice Department’s turning over Fast-and-Furious-related documents to Issa’s investigators and wiretap applications suggesting senior DOJ officials knew early on of the operation’s flawed tactics. “A good witness answers the question asked.’’

Holder insisted department officials had responded to subpoenas and turned over 7,600 pages of documents, and that senior officials had read only summaries of wiretap applications, which did not mention “gunwalking’’ observing weapons trafficking in order to catch cartel higher-ups.

Citing comments last week by Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan that Fast and Furious had “poisoned’’ Mexicans’ views of the U.S., Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, asked Holder: “What would America’s reaction be if the roles were completely reversed, if our neighbors, Mexico or Canada, facilitated the smuggling of automatic weapons into our country?’’

“ Probably similar to what the ambassador has said,’’ Holder said, although he asserted U.S. relations with Mexico remain solid.

Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., criticized Holder for Justice Department objections to laws in Texas and other mostly Southern states that require voters to produce a photo ID in order to cast ballots. Holder has argued that such rules would deny the constitutional right to vote to those without such IDs.

To exercise his constitutional right to petition the department, Lungren said he would have to show a photo ID to get on a plane and then to enter the Justice Department headquarters here.

“It’s a fundamental right to petition the government to redress my grievances,’’ Lungren said. “Don’t you think that is as important as, quote/unquote, the right to vote?’’

Later, Jackson Lee attempted to turn Lungren’s logic around, saying there are alternate means of traveling to Washington that don’t require presentation of a photo ID.

“But if you were denied the right to vote, there is no alternative,’’ she said. “There’s no other way.’’

Gohmert asked Holder why the department had not heeded his request for documents that had been provided to defendants in the Holyland Foundation case, in which five leaders of a Muslim charity were convicted in Dallas in 2008 of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip adjacent to Israel, has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

“ Why in the world would your department be more considerate of the terrorists than (members of) Congress, who can vote to just completely de-fund your department?’’ Gohmert said. “It makes no sense.’’

Holder said Gohmert would be entitled to any documents on the public record.